Decorative lighting commonly referred to as strip lighting has gained popularity in recent years for use as lighting accents to vehicles, such as boats, trucks and vans. Strip lighting has also gained wide acceptance as decorative lighting for use in restaurants, movie theaters and other public places. One type of such strip lighting is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,376,966. As discussed in the '966 patent, the strip lighting tube may be housed within a rigid channel which has a pair of inclined side walls and a bottom wall. It is common for this channel to be terminated by decorative end tips. Each end tip includes a flange which frictionally engages the channel side walls. The tip is connected to the channel by a screw passing through the tip flange and channel bottom wall and seating within a supporting structure to attach the channel and tip to the structure. The strip lighting tube is press fitted within the channel and overlies the screw.
A problem exists with current channel and tip constructions in that to attach the tip and channel to a supporting structure in the manner described, the flexible tube must be removed from the channel as the connecting screw is turned through the tip into the supporting structures. After the tip and channel are attached to the supporting structure, the flexible light tube is then press fitted into the channel while the electrical wires are fed through an opening in the channel bottom wall. The installation of removal of the prior art strip lighting channel and strip light as described is an awkward process.
Further, the tip is only locked into position with the channel when a screw or rivet connects the channel and tip to a supporting structure. Therefore, when the vinyl tube which is cut over-length to allow for shrinkage is installed by the manufacturer for packaging, the tip may be pushed out of the channel into the packaging. This makes assembly, commerical packaging and display of the channeled strip light difficult and expensive for the manufacturer.
A second type of prior art strip lighting tip and channel is formed from plastic and constructed so that as the tip is inserted into the channel a nib at the underside of the tip frictionally engages the bottom wall of the channel. The channel is attached to a supporting structure by double sided adhesive tape carried by the channel. This type of strip lighting channel suffers from the same problem of tip displacement by the tube lighting. Further, the insertion of the flange within the plastic channel may cause the walls of the channels to bulge outwardly about the flange. Such a bulging channel is aesthetically unappealing.